Otto Abetz, former Nazi envoy to the Vichy Government, this week-end signed an appeal against a 20-year sentence mated out to him by a French military tribunal here following his conviction on war crimes charges including responsibility for the mass deportation of 40,000 French Jews to Nazi death camps in Poland.

The court set aside the charge that the Nazi official was responsible for the murder of Georges Mandel, former French Minister of the Interior and a Jew, by Vichy militiamen. The verdict also included confiscation of all property found in his possession at the time of his arrest in 1945.